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The anti-spam measure for registering an account right now is knowing Rossignol's first name. I wonder if there might be some mileage in making the answer more obscure, and emailing it out to people who register WordPress accounts on the main site.

(I know that means you effectively have to register two accounts to use the forums, but I would imagine the number of people who want forum access but emphatically don't want commenting access on the posts is marginal.)

The anti-spam measure for registering an account right now is knowing Rossignol's first name. I wonder if there might be some mileage in making the answer more obscure, and emailing it out to people who register WordPress accounts on the main site.

This are not spambots, they are physical people doing it so it's pointless. The best way to deal with it is to disable register for a couple of weeks and rewrite the rules, maybe get a moderator in to be the only one activating accounts, because it's starting to get out of hand.

Wow, I've never seen spam this bad. As others have pointed out there are beyond a ridiculous number of accounts watching 'PC Gaming Discussion' and 'Other Stuff' (the other forums are slipping into their grasp as well). It seems to be just a few accounts actually making the threads, but there seem to be thousands of 'support' spam accounts.

I think volunteer moderators just for spam would be a good idea, but that alone will not solve the problem, merely slow it, we'd still get bombarded. Some sort of account creation control and new account activity control is needed as well.

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."

The Spam can go back in time now? And change the past? Oh no! Let's hope it doesn't try and kill Hitler.

It may be that most of the spam threads are started by people with 0 posts. But, how many other, non-spam threads are started by people with 0 posts? Making this requirement would prevent them from creating threads as well. And, as others have said, it would just move the spam into already existing threads, or we'd end up with the spam bots spamming 1 post in an existing thread, and then going to town making their spam threads. It would hardly be an effective prevention.

I also don't see any justification for closing the doors here... that would just be a complete overreaction, punishing legitimate possible members due to the actions of the Spam posters. The spam isn't that bad... it's easy enough to spot and easy to scroll past and ignore... It's fairly obvious if the title is about 'Watch X Y or Z', or something about a specific episode of a show, or it's about a TV show in PC Gaming discussion, or the thread title uses @'s and the like, or the poster is called Kadayi, that it can safely be ignored, you can move on and nothing of value will be lost. Just ignore it, move on, and it'll get deleted soon enough. Report it if you're civic minded. All those posts from yesterday evening are gone now, and, aside from some amusement and having to skip to page 2 of the forum, what disruption did they actually cause?

Yes, there's a lot of spam, but it's easy to spot and avoid and not get caught up with... like a turd on the street, or a pensioner that's fallen and broken their hip - the look, the smell, the pitiful wailing for help are all easy to spot. I don't think we should overreact, make membership some reward for completing trials of Homeric proportions. I don't think we should put any hoops in place for people to jump through. It'll punish legitimate users, and the spam will still find a way to get through.

It's a little wearing that you have to derail a thread into some kind of personal attack Unaco. No doubt I'm sure it will win you some browny points with a few others on the forum who've elected to hate my guts and disagree with everything I say as a matter of principle, but it's not really cricket. Realise I just don't care what you think in that respect and move on with your life man.

6 words in a ~400 word post is hardly derailing the thread into some kind of personal attack Kadayi. It was a casual, throwaway joke. Please don't turn this into another one of your exhibitions of terrible, but persistent, rhetoric. Besides... aren't you supposed to be ignoring me (like I suggested, many, many months ago, and have reminded you about many, many times - you really should be taking the advice of your betters here). If you're going to keep responding to my posts, shouldn't you take me off that silly "Phasers set to ignore" list? And how much of a de-railer do you think that is, appearing in all of your posts?

(Please don't respond, those last 2 questions are rhetorical... sit back and think about them, but I don't expect an answer).

The thread is about the Spam issues... lets stick to that shall we.

Originally Posted by Hypernetic

I just have an opinion different to your own. Circle jerking is good for no one, be glad somebody isn't afraid to disagree with women on the internet.

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."

The spam thread titles all use Google-syntax (I don't know if that's a thing; I just made it up, but I mean the kind of thing you would type into Google that isn't quite proper English). I suspect that they're not even trying to spam us; they're just trying to create threads that would match to Google searches. Which makes it all the more infuriating.

Also, I would buy this game, and not even in a Steam sale: at full price!

Make new accounts have to PM Jim(or whoever) on the forum with a few random personal details(age, location, SEX, why you're joining) so you can be manually authenticated. Anyone who doesn't PM Jim, gets stuck in unauthenticated unable to post limbo